Building the infrastructure the rental economy never had.
A seed-stage company building the trusted system of record for the rental economy: one regulated layer that connects money, insurance, and identity at the lease, where today there is none.
A category gap. Not a product gap.
Four parties are active at every lease event: renters, landlords, insurance carriers, and financial institutions. None share real-time data, and no company has ever sat at the center of their workflow with the regulatory mandate to connect them.
VFIntel closes that gap. Not as software or a platform, but as regulated financial infrastructure. Plaid connected banking. ICE connected the mortgage. VFIntel connects the lease.
Incorporated as Art of Pay Inc., operating across Canada and the United States, with a 275,000-unit pipeline built without marketing spend.
Every party built horizontally in their own lane. None has the regulated mandate to connect them all.
The team building it.
Five operators who have built regulated financial infrastructure before, across digital banking, insurance, payments, and compliance.
Robert Elensky
5-time founder with 25 years across fintech, insure-tech, and payments. Former COO at Senso.ai. Previously led SafeBank.ai, United Gulf Bank, Carta Worldwide, Mint Inc. Two digital bank exits.
Parth Bhavsar
Operations executive with hands-on experience inside four global financial institutions. Owns VFIntel's operational layer: integrations, compliance operations, and partner onboarding at scale.
Nick Seelert
Co-founder of Senso.ai. Builds regulated data infrastructure for financial institutions. Architects the technical stack and PMS integration framework.
Joan Baron
Insurance executive with deep carrier and distribution experience, including Co-operators Life. Leads carrier and MGA partnerships and the embedded insurance product.
Danielle Graffunder
President of NeverHere Consulting. Longtime VFIntel-side owner of bank sponsorship agreements, issuing and acquiring compliance, and processor oversight.
Mike Doughty
Former CEO of Manulife Canada and John Hancock. One of the most credentialed insurance executives in North America. Advises on carrier strategy and institutional distribution.
Sean Gilday
Strategic advisor. Manchester Story. Advises on go-to-market structure and early-stage capital strategy.
Experience is the multiplier. AI is the tailwind.
When software became cheap to build, the advantage moved to the two things a model cannot copy: regulated infrastructure, and the judgment to know what to build. So we hire experience first, senior operators with decades inside insurance, brokerage, payments, or credit, each owning a vertical and each paired with AI that turns one operator into the output of a department.
Two of us already built what used to take four teams, because the tools multiply judgment that is already there. Software is cheap to build now. The judgment to know what to build still takes decades.
Backed by people who have built this before.
Not passive capital. Operators, executives, and institution-builders who bring direct domain knowledge across insurance, real estate, fintech, and venture, to a company built at the intersection of all four.
Noam Edell
Led VFIntel's first tranche. Principal at Clanton Capital. Board member with access to a 200,000-250,000 unit real estate portfolio, one of VFIntel's most direct distribution pathways.
Board memberChris Albinson
Invested directly. Founder of True North and former CEO of Communitech, Canada's leading technology hub representing 3,000+ companies. Long-term builder of the Canadian ecosystem.
Board memberAltair VC
$600M+ AUM. 400+ portfolio companies. 10 unicorns. VFIntel's lead institutional investor, with global fintech and infrastructure experience and a portfolio that informs the cross-border build.
InvestedMike Doughty
Former CEO of Manulife Canada and John Hancock. Investor and senior advisor. A direct signal from the top of the insurance industry: an executive who ran North America's largest insurance operations endorsing the embedded distribution thesis.
Investor · AdvisorThe seed round funds final regulatory certification (MSB / MTL, PCI DSS Level 1), the founding carrier integrations, and the North American rollout. Partners and institutional investors engaging now enter at the foundational tier. Start at Insights info@vfintel.com.
Why now is the moment.
Three forces have converged in 2025-2026 to make the build both urgent and defensible, each independently significant, all three operating at once for the first time.
AI fraud has broken the existing system
AI-generated pay stubs and synthetic identities defeat one-time document checks in under sixty seconds. 93.3% of large property operators report tenant fraud, and the share is rising. A structural defense is continuous verification on real financial rails, which requires being the payments company.Source: NMHC Pulse Survey, 2024
Embedded insurance has proven the demand
Embedded distribution at point-of-transaction is proven across auto, home, and travel insurance. The rental transaction, which most leases legally require coverage for, is the largest untapped embedded moment in North America. 45% of US renters still carry no insurance.Source: Insurance Information Institute, 2024
Credit invisibility has a political moment
Regulators and bureau partners are actively seeking verified data streams for thin-file enrichment. 87% of rent payments produce no credit signal, and the environment for rent-to-credit reporting has never been more receptive.Source: TransUnion, September 2025
Book a partnership conversation.
Every partnership conversation is fifteen minutes with the right person, not a sales call. Bring a specific question; we give a direct answer about how your category connects to what we are building.
Carriers & MGAs
Carrier economics, position structure, geography, and what embedded distribution looks like inside your policy administration system.
PMCs & PMS
Which value drivers matter most for your portfolio size and PMS, plus the white-label and revenue-share path for platforms.
Credit bureaus
Data architecture, consent flow, reporting format, and where the embedded credit opportunity sits within the verified renter population.
Investors
Round structure, foundational-tier economics, geographic coverage plan, and how the regulatory rail compounds across the six domains.
Fifteen minutes. A direct answer.
No slides. No prepared pitch. Book fifteen minutes with the right person on our partnerships team and bring your one most important question about how your institution connects to what we are building.